


nothing to converse

by choomchoom



Series: Femslash February 2020 [6]
Category: Transformers: Cyberverse
Genre: Everyone is alive no i won't explain how, F/F, Idiots in Love, Mutual Being Terrible At Talking About Feelings, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:07:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22670731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choomchoom/pseuds/choomchoom
Summary: After a solid minute of silence, it occurred to Windblade that in response to Slipstream refusing to set boundaries or communicate her feelings in anything other than loaded looks, Windblade had been doing exactly the same. She’d kept herself as open as possible, intending to make room for whatever space Slipstream might want to take in her life, but she hadn’t made any attempt to invite her in.
Relationships: Background Drift/Hot Rod, Slipstream/Windblade
Series: Femslash February 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620400
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	nothing to converse

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t have the energy to write a proper fixit so this is just an au where the girls are ok somehow. You can imagine it in something like the universe of Slipstream’s Ghost (https://archiveofourown.org/works/22072009) or eyes like the sun (https://archiveofourown.org/works/20915717) or the Slipstream Lives scenario of your choosing. 
> 
> Spoilers: the latter two scenes reference events that occur in the last few episodes of Cyberverse season 2.

Having Slipstream on the Ark was weird.

She was different than Windblade was used to, bristly but not pushy. Windblade was trying not to think about how much it must be bothering Slipstream to smooth herself down like that for the Autobots. Really, she tried to think about Slipstream as little as possible, and “as little as possible” was still quite a lot.

Windblade was doing a passable job not thinking about her when she emerged with Hot Rod and Arcee from a navigation station training, only to be unsurprised to see Slipstream waiting for her, lounging against the wall with her arms crossed. With the long journey ahead of them and the cryostasis pods mostly rendered unusable by the battle (and the Allspark nullifying any concerns they may have had about fuel), everyone was rotating through duty rosters so that nobody would lose their mind from boredom. Slipstream hadn’t been added to any of them yet – it was an Autobot ship, and she wasn’t actually an Autobot. So Slipstream always seemed to have nothing better to do than be waiting for Windblade after she was finished with a shift.

Windblade certainly wasn’t going to complain.

“Yes!” Hot Road exclaimed when he checked his communicator. “Zero gravity dodgeball, tonight, hall above the engine rooms. We are _confirmed_.”

“Does Optimus know about this?” Windblade asked, regretting it from before she even spoke.

“Killjoy. You’re officially uninvited.”

Windblade just rolled her optics, knowing that he wouldn’t be complaining if she showed up anyway. Especially if he could get her on his team – she was _excellent_ at zero-G dodgeball.

Giving no indication of it, Windblade used internal comms to ping Hot Rod. < _Can Slipstream come_?> She’d been walking in silence beside them, an awkwardly long distance away from Windblade, as they made their way down the hall.

_Yeah! Of course. Just make sure she knows all the rules._

That dealt with, she turned to Slipstream. “You should join us.”

She’d tried to invite Slipstream to enough social events by now to know that she couldn’t just ask if she _wanted_ to come. Slipstream would see it as a trap and give Windblade a disapproving look as she declined. Windblade didn’t know what kind of Decepticon mind games had led to the habit, but she knew that when she simply told Slipstream that she would be included, Slipstream would blush and smile and attend whatever it was.

And that was exactly what happened. Something strange fluttered in Windblade’s spark at the softness in Slipstream’s expression, just like every other time. Once Slipstream had the smile that had edged its way onto her face under control, she turned to Windblade. “I bet you’re really good at that.”

“You’ll have to find out.” Windblade didn’t bother to hide her own smile.

They were passing Slipstream’s room, so she broke off to unlock the door. “See you later.”

“Later.”

Windblade didn’t exactly notice that she was still smiling as they kept walking down the hall until she noticed Hot Rod looking at her funny. She smoothed out her face. “What?”

“She liiiiikes you,” Hot Rod whispered with a slag-eating grin.

Windblade’s jaw dropped as she floundered for words. Arcee poked at Hot Rod’s shoulder. “Be nice.”

“How is that not nice? You can take it as a warning or a hot tip, no judgement from me.”

Hot Rod’s face appeared in front of Windblade’s, and Windblade jumped, realizing at the same time that she had been glancing back at the door Slipstream had just walked through. His optics widened. “You like HER.”

“Alright, I’m out. Enjoy your conversation,” Arcee said, already walking away in the opposite direction.

“There’s nothing to – to converse,” Windblade said, but by the time she finished she was talking only to Hot Rod, still smiling like Windblade was the most entertaining thing he’d seen all day (which was probably true. Nav station training had been pretty boring).

“She doesn’t like me,” Windblade whispered to Hot Rod as she pulled him down the hallway away from Slipstream’s room. “She trusts me, because I was the only one who believed her about Starscream. It’s different.”

“She’s got it bad, then,” Hot Rod said, and at Windblade’s Look, he shrugged. “Decepticons don’t just trust people. That’s big, Windy.”

“Right. Because you have so much experience being one.”

“Kinda.” Windblade gave him another look. He shrugged. “I have experience.”

He sounded serious in a way he almost never did. Windblade had never known him or Drift very well before the Ark had gone missing, but from the few months since its passengers had awakened she could tell that the two of them were close in one way or another. Maybe this would be worth listening to. She nodded him on.

“With Decepticons, “like” comes first. Trust comes...usually never. Of course, you can like someone who you don’t want to kiss and cuddle and swap cables with, but you can tell that that’s what she wants from the way she looks at you.”

“And how does she look at me?”

“Like she’s a planet and you’re the sun.”

Windblade hipchecked him, a gesture that he immediately returned. “Never took you for such a sap.”

“Yeah? Well, you don’t know me very well.”

Drift stepped out of a lift, then, at the end of the hallway. She’d never admit it, but looking at Hot Rod’s face when he saw him, she understood what he’d meant.

She let herself think about it as she made her escape to give the two of them some time alone. Slipstream waiting for her outside meetings, so frequently Windblade had come to expect it. Slipstream agreeing to go anywhere Windblade indicated she wanted her. The way Slipstream caught Windblade’s optics, looking as though she was perpetually waiting for something.

* * *

Windblade shifted on her feet, walked a couple paces away, then sighed and made her way back to Slipstream’s door, knocking this time before she could talk herself out of it.

Windblade didn’t want to invade or pry, and Slipstream was likely to accommodate her to a fault, even if she wanted to be alone. She refused to ever communicate what she _wanted_ , just accepted whatever Windblade gave, and it was frustrating to always have to guess.

Slipstream hadn’t left her room since yesterday, though, when they’d all found out that Starscream had escaped. At the very least Windblade could drop off energon for her and leave if she got the impression that Slipstream didn’t feel like company.

“Who’s there?” Slipstream asked, with a sharpness Windblade hadn’t heard from her since back when they were enemies.

“Just me,” Windblade said. She waited, half-hoping that Slipstream would keep her door closed, that she would set a boundary for once.

Slipstream opened the door a moment later, though, glancing around the empty hallway before gesturing Windblade inside. Slipstream’s room held two berths, like all of them on the Ark did, but one of them was obviously going unused. Hot Rod’s voice wormed its way into the back of Windblade’s mind – this would be a perfect place to _kiss or cuddle or swap cables_ in private.

That so wasn’t why she was here, though. “Haven’t seen you around,” Windblade said, offering Slipstream one of the cubes of liquid energon she was holding.

Slipstream uncapped it and took a sip. Windblade uncapped the other one. She’d been planning to leave it here if Slipstream was feeling unfriendly, but she didn’t want to enable Slipstream brooding by herself in here when it looked like she might be able to talk her out of it. “Would you have _wanted_ to see me around?” Slipstream asked.

“Yes,” Windblade said, both because it was true and because of the look she knew it would elicit on Slipstream’s face – the question had obviously been intended as a gotcha, Slipstream hadn’t been dreaming that Windblade might answer in the affirmative. “Even I know you’re not like him,” she continued. “And you and I were at each other’s throats for cycles before almost anyone else here even met you.”

“Do the things I did back then really count in my favor?”

“No, they don’t. That’s my point. The things you do _now_ do.”

Slipstream nodded. Windblade suspected that it was her version of _thanks_.

* * *

Windblade’s spark jumped into her throat at the knock on the door of the armory. She hadn’t expected anyone to find her here, but as she opened the door, she admitted to herself that she’d been hoping someone would.

It was Slipstream on the other side of the door, which made Windblade’s spark twist in a full circle. She didn’t really want to deal with Slipstream’s too-patient too-accommodating approach right now. She considered, for a second, trying to bait Slipstream into a fight like the old days. Maybe after that, laying next to Slipstream, exhausted on the floor, she’d feel like her body was her own again.

If this was anyone else, she would ask for a hug. But she wasn’t sure if that would cross one of Slipstream’s ephemeral boundaries and too exhausted to try to figure it out.

“Do you want to be alone?” Slipstream asked, reading probably too much into Windblade’s expression.

That, at least, was easy enough to answer. “No.”

Slipstream stepped inside and closed the door. Just the two of them, surrounded by blasters and grenades and energy swords. Windblade smiled a little at the memory of a time when the setting would have had her on edge, scrutinizing Slipstream’s every fraction of a move, and feeling so alive for it.

Now, though, she just took a seat on the floor. Slipstream sat cautiously next to her, not touching, and didn’t say anything else.

After a solid minute of silence, it occurred to Windblade that in response to Slipstream refusing to set boundaries or communicate her feelings in anything other than loaded looks, Windblade had been doing exactly the same. She’d kept herself as open as possible, intending to make room for whatever space Slipstream might want to take in her life, but she hadn’t made any attempt to invite her in.

She almost laughed, but the possibility that Windblade could have put an end to this stupid dance at any time was upsetting enough that she didn’t. Instead, she said “That was terrifying for me, today. Usually if a Titan’s going to speak through me like that, I know in advance, and I can prepare, and there’s people around me who know how to keep me safe, and there’s no reason for me to _hurt my crewmembers_.”

“They all know better than to blame you for that,” Slipstream said. “And besides, Bumblebee’s fine. You’re allowed to be scared without it being for someone else’s benefit.”

Windblade did laugh at that, at Slipstream essentially reaching inside Windblade and delivering a chastising flick straight to her spark. “Thanks.”

“Can I help at all?” Slipstream asked, and Windblade shut her optics, too exhausted to deal with this.

“I don’t know,” she said. It was close enough to the truth. She didn’t want to tell Slipstream to do anything, not when she knew that Slipstream would leap to do it whether she really wanted to or not. The burden of that was more than she felt like she could handle right now.

“I can’t tell what that means.” It wasn’t even a question. She was refusing to ask anything of Windblade, even now, even like this.

“It means I don’t want to tell you what to do,” Windblade said. “I want to spend time with _you_ , not some kind of automaton who does whatever it is you think I want. I know that being here has been hard and all, but I want you to feel like you can tell me when I mess up and I want you to say no when you want to say no and I’m sorry if that’s too much but I want y–”

Finally, finally, Slipstream reached for Windblade. Windblade let herself fall into Slipstream’s arms and surrendered herself entirely to Slipstream’s urgent kiss. Everything fell away but Slipstream’s lips, Slipstream’s vents, Slipstream’s hand teasing at the edge of Windblade’s wing.

“How am I doing?” Slipstream took a break just to ask.

Windblade had no response other than a grin, and that was enough to entice Slipstream to kiss her again.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm working off of this prompt list. Fanfic is happening every other day https://choomchoom.tumblr.com/post/190496147157/femslashfeb-any-world-any-fandom-any
> 
> I am sort of taking prompts for this series - feel free to suggest stuff, but I won't make any promises because the schedule is already a lot.
> 
> This one sort of strayed from the idea I had based on the prompt, but I'm happy with what it turned into.


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